“Now I can see your face,” she whispered.
Thirteen
The inside of the house hazy, I didn’t recognize my childhood home until I saw the stone fireplace in the living room with my great-grandmother’s hand-quilted banner hanging above it. Against an abstract background of gold and blue stood a pair of disembodied silver wings. Mother, young the way I remember her when I was a girl, rested in the old brown high-backed rocker. I watched from the floor beside her as she placed a wooden egg inside one of my father’s worn black socks. She positioned the fabric’s hole at the top, and began darning, one stitch through, another and then another.
“Clara, when you’re a wife, you’ll do this for your husband and children, so pay attention. Socks are expensive, and holes can be mended. You’ll want to take good care of your family.”
In my dream, I was Lily’s age, a young teenager, innocent and naive. That day, for some reason I didn’t understand, Mother had insisted I wear my best dress—pink and white plaid with bows at the neck and the wrists. I bunched the full skirt around my legs. My black hair so long it passed my waist, Mother had meticulously braided the crown and coiled it in a topknot.
Even then I’d been a matter-of-fact child. “I’d rather work with Father at the mill,” I said.
Eyebrows rising, Mother appeared impatient. “Clara, I’ve told you, that is man’s work. The mill is where the men work, to support our family. Women’s work is in the home. If you keep pure, God will bless you with a worthy husband and through you, your father and me with many grandchildren.”
“Mother, I—”
“Be sweet, Clara,” Mother cautioned. She put down her darning and leaned forward. She took my chin in her hand and tilted my face toward her until our eyes met. “If you give yourself over to God and obey the prophet, you’ll have great glory in the next world. The highest honor for a woman is to be married to a righteous man, like your father. Remember that, always.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said. She released me and picked up her work. I watched as Mother carefully repaired the damage wrought by wear and time.
As Mother darned, Father entered the room. Happy to see him, I jumped up and ran to him. He smiled down at me.
“Are you finished for the day?” I asked.
“Yes, Clara. It’s been a long, busy day, but I’m home and looking forward to supper,” he said. At that, he bent down, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. It was then that I glimpsed someone walking in behind him.
A gray-haired man emerged from the shadows, and Father said, “Look who has come to visit you.”
I woke with a shudder.
For hours after we returned to the shelter the night before, Hannah and I talked, dissecting what Gerard Barstow had said about Delilah, trying to decipher if it was true. Hannah believed him. “I’ve never known Gerard to lie,” she said. “His brother Evan, yes, but not Gerard.”
“I’m not buying it,” I said. “Why would Lily have been so upset if Delilah’s not in trouble?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “But isn’t it possible you’re reading too much into what you thought she might say?”
Hannah had eventually gone to bed. Once alone, I’d plugged in my laptop. I logged on to the NCIC website and clicked on MISSING PERSONS. On the ADD A REPORT screen, I typed in DELILAH JEFFERIES. I’d had little to enter, just her age, a physical description, and the few details in the note: that she’d disappeared the prior Thursday evening and was believed abducted from the small town of Alber, Utah.
For a contact number, I’d listed my cell phone.
After a restless night in one of the shelter’s seven master bedrooms, I woke before dawn, my head filled with images from my dream and thoughts of Delilah. Still dark outside, I showered and dressed, put on khakis, loafers, and a pale blue button-down shirt. I ran a brush through my wet hair, thinking about the innocent young girl I once was. I recalled mornings in our house, children milling about, pushing past one another as we dressed for school. I could almost feel Mother Naomi working her fingers through my hair, pulling the tangles out, crooning in my ear about the blessings that awaited me when I became a mother. “You and your children will be jewels in your husband’s heavenly crown.”
A last swipe of the brush, and I secured my shoulder-length hair into my usual tight bun.
That done, I pulled my bag off the closet shelf and double-checked to make sure my gun was fully loaded. I clicked the magazine back in as a familiar sound, a screech, drew me to the window. I pushed back long beige drapes and discovered double doors. The sun had come up. I flipped a lock and stepped out onto a second-floor balcony.
Below me spread an immense yard surrounded by cottages, the center taken up by a primitive playground and a vast vegetable garden. As early as it was, a dozen or so children played in a sandbox and spun each other around on a wooden merry-go-round. Three girls on swings pumped hard, their feet pointed toward the sky.
Nearby, half a dozen women and the older children shuffled systematically through the garden, harvesting what appeared to be green beans. Others were on their knees digging out potatoes and pulling carrots. Near the back, a cluster of women ripped corn off stalks and piled the cobs still in their husks into their aprons. When full, they dumped the corn into barrel-size wooden baskets with rope handles.
I remembered working with my mothers, brothers and sisters during the harvest, the sweet smell of the ripening corn, the insects buzzing my face, the hard ground beneath my feet, the way the corn stalks scratched through my clothes, the leaves sharp as I grabbed
